KAY HASSAN

Kay Hassan was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1956. Though he is best known for his large scale ‘constructions’ made of torn, reconfigured, and pasted pieces of printed billboard posters, Hassan works in numerous media including painting, collage, installation, video, sculpture, and photography. Hassan's work is unified by a continuing interest in themes of migration, dispossession, trade, overproduction, waste, and urban life.

In an October 2000 feature in ArtThrob Hassan said, "Our lives have always been torn and put together and torn - people have always been pushed around. You see it in the streets, in the kids begging, those eyes, the way they look at you. Imagine being a parent, and having kids that have to be fed, but you have no money - so what do you do - you have to commit a crime. But I don't only reflect what is happening in South Africa, it's a reflection of what is happening in this world."